flying wing

Definition of flying wing

: a tailless aircraft that has the form of a left and right wing joined together at the midline with little or no apparent fuselage
Engineers call it a flying wing, or “blended wing body”. Gone is the familiar cylindrical fuselage … . Instead, the craft has a pair of thick, swept-back wings with the engines embedded inside. The tail is also gone, replaced by gyroscopes and raised “winglets” that help keep the plane stable.— Bennett Daviss, New Scientist, 24 Feb. 2007As expected, the B-2 was a flying wing, a type that Northrop's founder, Jack Northrop, pioneered in the 1940's. Engineers had long known that flying wings, which lack tail fins, rudders and elevators, reflect only small radar echoes from head-on.— Malcolm W. Browne, New York Times, 14 May 1991Some aeronautical engineers also argue that a flying wing is a lifting body—not a wing without a fuselage but a fuselage shaped entirely like a wing.— Stephan Wilkinson, Air & Space Smithsonian, April/May 1991

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